In the Shadow of Petrucci: Why Attaingnant and His Methods Are Lost in History Sean A
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Cedarville University DigitalCommons@Cedarville The Research and Scholarship Symposium The 2016 yS mposium Apr 20th, 2:00 PM - 2:20 PM In the Shadow of Petrucci: Why Attaingnant and His Methods Are Lost in History Sean A. Kisch Cedarville University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/ research_scholarship_symposium Part of the Music Commons Kisch, Sean A., "In the Shadow of Petrucci: Why Attaingnant and His Methods Are Lost in History" (2016). The Research and Scholarship Symposium. 12. http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/research_scholarship_symposium/2016/podium_presentations/12 This Podium Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Cedarville, a service of the Centennial Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Research and Scholarship Symposium by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Cedarville. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sean Kisch 12/4/15 In the Shadow of Petrucci: Why Attaingnant and His Methods Are Lost in History The music printing of Ottaviano Petrucci has been largely regarded by historians to be the most elegant and advanced form of music publishing in the Renaissance, while printers such as Pierre Attaingnant are only given an obligatory nod. While Petrucci’s triple impression method produced cleaner and more connected staves, a significant number of problems resulted, including pitch accuracy and cost efficiency. Attaingnant’s single impression method solved most of these difficulties, while only sacrificing a small amount of visual aesthetic. Despite these advancements, Petrucci managed to dominate the music publishing industry in Venice during his lifetime while Attaingnant achieved success to a lesser degree. How did Petrucci manage to gain a twenty-year legal monopoly in Venice, and how did he stay in tune with his clients’ needs and music demands? The single impression method of Attaingnant outlasted the triple impression method of Petrucci because his technology was more efficient and accurate, but Petrucci was more successful during his time because of his business skills. Petrucci has often been recognized as the father of music printing, and not without ample reason. However, he was not the first to publish music with a printing press. His first volume appeared in 1501, but several other forms of music publishing led up to this first great work.1 Liturgical chant had already been printed from type for several decades, wood-block carvings and metal cuts were 1 Stanley Boorman, Studies in the Printing, Publishing and Performance of Music in the 16th Century (Burlington: Ashgate/Variorum, 2006), 303. occasionally in use, and some books had printed staves with the notes written in by hand.2 Some scholars assert that Petrucci “perfected” the method of music printing, but this also is a bit of an overstatement.3 Petrucci did not add to or change anything with regard to the actual mechanics of music publishing, yet something in his methodology enabled him to produce undoubtedly the most elegant sheet music available during his time, and for years to come.4 Unfortunately, today we know very little about the materials, technology, and methods used by Petrucci and his counterparts because none of the actual machinery survives. Most of what we know comes from the printed books themselves, from illustrations of presses and printing shops, or from descriptions.5 However, from these few sources, we can discover several key facts regarding Petrucci’s paper, type, staves, and ink. Paper was a major expense of the industry, comprising anywhere from thirty to fifty percent of the total cost of a book. Petrucci’s preferred paper was in landscape format, and was probably measured at 347 x 482 mm, although these numbers are difficult to prove since almost all surviving copies have been trimmed for binding, as is evident from the state of the watermarks.6 As Petrucci’s career developed, he began using paper of a less consistent quality. Books printed around 2 Howard M. Brown and Louise K. Stein, Music in The Renaissance (Upper Saddle River: Courier Companies, Inc., 1999), 167. 3 Peter J.D. Scott, “Ottaviano Petrucci, Paragon of Printing Perfection? Observations on his 1506 Lamentationum Jeremie Prophete Liber Primus and Liber Secundus,” Fontes Artis Musicae 51 no. 1 (2004): 74. 4 Boorman, Studies in Printing 303. 5 Stanley Boorman. Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 109. 6 Ibid., 110-111. 1510 have paper of variable color, thickness, and quality of finish.7 It would seem that in 1501 he set out with high standards, but that they began to diminish by the time he left Venice. Another possible explanation might be that as his career developed and the demand for his publications increased, Petrucci couldn’t afford to spend as much time scouting out the perfect paper. The fact that he spent a preparation period of three years between gaining his monopoly and publishing his first edition of Odhecaton A suggests that he saw his initial works as a springboard for his career, and once he amassed a successful customer base he was not as concerned with paper perfection. One final explanation might be that quality paper simply became less available in Petrucci’s later career, either from a lack of supply and demand in the economy or a shortage of materials for paper suppliers. While the creation of paper was certainly a difficult and expensive endeavor, this last explanation seems unlikely since the cost of paper declined during the sixteenth century and one would expect to see an increase if it became harder to obtain.8 Perhaps the most valuable information we learn from Petrucci’s paper is that he probably had more than one actual press. In certain manuscripts, two or more different kind of papers will run tandem through a series of books. Most likely, this was a result of two typesetters, or compositors, working on two presses with the same supply of paper. When one supply of paper ran out, they moved on to the next.9 7 Ibid., 112-113. 8 Ibid., 110. 9 Ibid., 114. Petrucci’s type was special in a few aspects, but for the most part conformed to the normal practice of the period. One of the defining aspects of Petrucci’s type was his use of a metal known as fused marcasite of antimony.10 The characteristics of this metal allowed him to create very fine elements even from his earliest works,11 such as Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A, in which elements such as flats, clefs, mensuration signs, double bar lines, and ledger lines appear quite thin.12 The actual notes possess great elegance in many of their features: the diamond heads, the elongated stems, and the style of flags. Perhaps the most complex and outstanding detail which Petrucci used to beautify the notes was his use of kerning. A kerned character is one in which the symbol to be printed projects beyond the body of the type. One of the essential elements of the beauty of a font is the different spacing between different letters. Two consecutive letters “w,” such as in “glowworm,” will appear too far apart if they are spaced in the same manner as two letters “m,” such as in “hammer.” The same principle applies to noteheads— especially those with flags—and the evidence suggests that Petrucci dealt with this by mounting his notes on small bodies, with the tails kerned.13 In this manner, the flagged notes do not appear widely or awkwardly spaced in relation to the notes with no flag or stem (see Figure 1). 10 Ibid., 117. 11 Ibid. 12 Ottaviano Petrucci, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (New York: Broude Brothers Limited, 1973). 13 Boorman. Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonne, 124. Figure 1 Ottaviano Petrucci. Harmonice Odhecaton A (New York: Broude Brothers Limited, 1973), 57. Petrucci’s ink does not appear to be exceptional in any way, which probably means he used the normal ink recipes of the time. The ink in most of his editions is still black and glossy, and the few exceptions in which the ink is greyer are probably a result of a faulty impression, not poor ink. Faulty impressions could be caused for a number of reasons, including sizing the paper poorly or not being careful to cover the whole forme (the body of type securing in a chase) with ink.14 Basically nothing is known of Petrucci’s actual printing press because none of his technology survives today. While descriptions do exist of general printing presses of the period, they are not clear enough to reconstruct a historic press. Because Petrucci’s printed books reveal little about the actual press and more about 14 Ibid., 139. the materials themselves, it is nearly impossible to know what physical technology Petrucci used and what, if anything, made his unique.15 Exactly how Petrucci used his press has actually been a point of contention. Of course, the single element which makes Petrucci’s style so outstanding is the fact that he used multiple impressions, but whether he used two or three impressions is somewhat up for debate. Most evidence shows that, at least for the earliest editions, Petrucci used three impressions: one for the staves, one for the music, and one for the text.16 While the type-setting of staves and text would have been relatively simple, the setting of the music notes would have presented some unique challenges. First, the bodies of the notes would have been different sizes, and second, their vertical spacing in relation to one another would have varied depending on where they were to be placed on the staff. The solution was to use very small pieces, known as spacing sorts, to place the symbol at the correct pitch and hold it in place.17 The last component which influenced Petrucci’s product, although it might be obvious, is the craftsmen themselves.